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    If the laws of nature are necessary, the melting point of... — Carmelics
    Home/Philosophy of Language
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    If the laws of nature are necessary, the melting point of gold is necessary in the same way that gold's atomic number is necessary.

    Modality & PossibilityPhilosophy of Language
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.The melting point of gold is a nomic consequence of gold's essence.
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    • 2.If the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, all nomic consequences of a kind's essence are necessary properties of that kind.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Laws of nature are contingent regularities, not metaphysical necessities—a position defended by Humeans like Lewis via Best System Analysis.
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    • 2.If laws are contingent, nomic consequences of a kind's essence inherit only nomological, not metaphysical, necessity.
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    • 3.Therefore, gold's melting point could differ in worlds with different laws, unlike its atomic number, which is fixed by constitution alone.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Atomic number is an intrinsic microstructural property of gold; melting point is a dispositional property fixed by gold's structure plus external laws.
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    • 2.Kripke's original necessity-of-identity arguments apply to constitutive essences, not to relational, law-dependent dispositional properties.
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    • 3.Conflating constitutive and nomic necessity illegitimately extends Kripkean essentialism beyond its intended and defensible scope.
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    Philosophy of LanguageModality & Possibility

    Related

    Atomic number is an intrinsic microstructural property of gold; melting point is...Conflating constitutive and nomic necessity illegitimately extends Kripkean esse...If laws are contingent, nomic consequences of a kind's essence inherit only nomo...If the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, all nomic consequences of a ...
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    Kripke's original necessity-of-identity arguments apply to constitutive essences...Laws of nature are contingent regularities, not metaphysical necessities—a posit...The melting point of gold is a nomic consequence of gold's essence.Therefore, gold's melting point could differ in worlds with different laws, unli...

    Similar

    The melting point of gold is a nomic consequence of gold's essence.84%Having atomic number 79 is necessarily a necessary condition for being...78%If the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, all nomic conseque...75%One cannot know a priori that gold does not have atomic number 79, yet...75%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: natural-kinds
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    Some proposed cases of (i) require the laws of nature to be contingent. Although the laws of nature are widely held to be contingent, some philosophers hold that the laws are necessary, on the basis of essentialist arguments that are much of a piece with Kripke’s essentialist arguments, even if strictly independent of them. The anti-descriptivist arguments regard the observable properties of instances of a kind C as nomic consequences of the essence of C. If the laws of nature are metaphysically
    Extraction notes

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    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit